


We Traveled So Far

by streetsuss_serenade



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10686147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetsuss_serenade/pseuds/streetsuss_serenade
Summary: Coming to Nate was supposed to make things easier, not make everything infinitely harder.





	We Traveled So Far

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to reallyohcrap, mollynoble, thatsnotmotzarts and genesledges for turning this into what it is. It really does take a village.
> 
> This is based solely off the characters in the mini-series. The title belongs to Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Brad’s stubble scratched Nate’s shoulder through the thin cotton of his undershirt, but Nate didn’t dare move, in case he woke Brad up. Sleep was hard to come by these days, and if he couldn’t partake himself, the least he could do was facilitate Brad’s slumber. He craned his neck trying to see the clock on the bedside table without moving too much. Good. Brad had been asleep for close to an hour. With any luck he’d get in a full REM cycle before waking.

Almost as if he’d jinxed it, Nate felt Brad jolt awake, realize where he was and go perfectly still. After a beat Brad propped himself up on one arm, face blank, and rasped “I’m sorry. I should go.”

Nate knew he was right. He should go. He shouldn’t even be here to begin with, and if he left now, they could write this off as one of those things you did in the darkness to survive—if you flexed those rules to apply even now that they were home.

But Brad looked exhausted, and he didn’t feel any better. The distraction of Brad’s presence had kept Nate from focusing on his own worries for almost an hour. It was longer than he’d managed on his own; he’d been able to relax enough that he almost dared to hope he’d doze himself. He didn’t want Brad to go.

“You’re fine. You need to sleep.”

Brad, still hovering over him, studied his face. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, Brad nodded once and rolled over onto his stomach, his head turned away, with his body close enough that his arm remained pressed against Nate’s side.

Nate had been cleaning the dinky kitchenette when Brad’s knock had startled him. The hotel kitchen hadn’t particularly needed a deep scrub, but Nate’s mother had taught him that when you were upset, you clean. Sometimes the activity made you feel better, and if it didn’t, things were cleaner than when you’d started and that was something. 

Nate could never sleep after traveling. He remembered falling asleep on the Metropolitana on his first day in Rome, and ending up an hour late to his study abroad orientation program. Jet lag combined with residual adrenaline left sleep laughably far away. Still, it was their third night back, and Nate had been hopeful that tonight would be the night he got more than an hour or two of sleep at a time. However, when he found himself pulling back the shower curtain _just in case_ for the third time in an hour, he’d accepted the inevitable and headed to the drugstore on the corner. Avoiding the security mirrors because he didn’t want to see the look on his own face, he’d purchased a bucket and scrub brush, and a whole slew of cleaning products with colorful labels and creepy cartoon bubbles on them.

Cleaning the kitchen hadn’t helped Nate’s anxiety, but the stove had looked almost as good as new when he had heard the knock on the door. A glance through the peephole had revealed nothing more illuminating than a t-shirt clad shoulder, but he had opened the door anyway, feeling recklessly glad to have something to validate the dread that had been creeping in his stomach all day. Here was something he could deal with and, if necessary, fight.

His aggression had drained immediately when he opened to door to Brad, looking more helpless than Nate had ever seen him. Nate froze, unable to make the connection between “Brad” and “helpless.” Before he’d had a chance to pull himself together Brad said “Nate, please,” and Nate was undone. 

He stepped aside, gesturing Brad into the room he’d rented, chosen only because it was close to the base and had a bed. Brad stood in the middle of the room, staring blankly around him. It was obvious he was clearing the room from muscle memory; he was so out of it that he didn’t seem to be registering anything. Nate spared a brief second to wonder how Brad had gotten there and to hope he hadn’t driven in this state. 

“Brad?”

Brad didn’t respond, but continued looking around the room. His eyes skittered from object to object as if looking for something that wasn’t there. He looked pale in the hotel lights and the bags under his eyes were more pronounced than Nate could remember seeing them. Nate found himself transfixed by a missed belt loop on Brad’s side, a symptom of untidiness so antithetical to Brad’s thorough, detailed nature. Tearing his eyes away from the belt loop, Nate stepped forward and touched Brad’s arm. Brad looked sharply at Nate and then relaxed a little as he seemed to recognize him.

“Sorry, I didn’t… didn’t…” He shook his head a little, as if to clear it. “I couldn’t sleep.” 

Nate nodded. He was familiar with the feeling. 

“I’m sorry.” Brad repeated “I wasn’t sure where to go.”

“You’re fine. You’re welcome here.”

Nate wasn’t sure what to do next. The part of his brain that recognized that there was a world outside of this door, a world with duties and responsibilities and consequences, urged Nate to tread carefully. Brad couldn’t have known that Nate harbored all sorts of illicit hopes and desires and affections for him when he came here for help. Nate wasn’t going to act on any of it while Brad was in distress, but it was hard to ignore the fact that this was the closest they had ever been while out of uniform, and that part of him was screaming that Brad was his and good and safe and should be held close and protected. 

It was unclear what Brad had been expecting, but at least part of him seemed to have been waiting to be turned away, because at Nate’s words Brad swayed like it had taken all of his energy to get himself to safety, and he had none left to continue standing. When Nate reached out to steady him, Brad collapsed into him, bending down and placing his forehead on Nate’s shoulder. Nate wrapped an arm around Brad’s shoulder, staggering a little as Brad leaned his not inconsiderable weight on him. 

Given that Brad seemed to have to no plans on moving on his own anytime soon, Nate steered them carefully toward the bed. When the backs of his legs hit the bed, Brad raised his head and looked at Nate curiously, but offered no objections. Nate pushed him toward the top of the bed, and climbed in on the other side. Brad kicked off his shoes and followed Nate’s nonverbal instructions, his eyes half closed. Nate arranged them so that Brad’s head was resting on his shoulder, but he was still getting some blood flow to his arm. He laid there, staring at the ceiling, and prayed that he was doing the right thing.

***

Brad wasn’t sure how he could have fucked things up this badly but he should know better than to underestimate how stupid sleep deprivation could make you. All he’d wanted was someplace it felt safe to let down his guard. Yet here he was, laying next to his platoon commander, who he deeply respected and desperately wanted to fuck, listening to him pretend to sleep.

Brad had found himself pacing circles around his living room, knowing, _knowing_ that he was being ridiculous, but unable to make his body keep still. He knew he was perfectly safe, but couldn’t settle down. He needed something to do. He needed a task. He needed to sleep, but though the Corps had taught him many skills, sleeping while pacing was not among them.

He needed to get to a safe location. He needed to get somewhere where someone else could keep watch for a while, and he could get some sleep. He thought about going to the base. Ray was there, and would provide company with a minimum of bitching. But if he went to the base, there was going to be movement, and noise, and people trying to talk to him. No. Too hard. He needed to find Nate. The LT would know what to do. He always did.

Brad knew where the Nate was staying, because he’d overheard him telling Wynn on the night they’d gotten home. Brad may or may not have been eavesdropping at the time, but that wasn’t the point. He knew where to go. The LT would know what to do.

The motel was only a few miles away, so Brad put on his shoes and headed out. Moving forward didn’t take much more energy than pacing, after all. But Brad had miscalculated. He hadn’t counted on all the ambient noise and movement. By the time he’d gone even halfway, he felt like Captain America crying out in the darkness. Brad shook himself, irritated. He was better than that. He was better than this. He kept putting one foot in front of the other. By the time the motel came into view, he was exhausted. He’d knocked on the door, hoping Nate was home. He would know what Brad needed to do.

In one respect, coming here had been the right choice, because even a brief nap had him thinking clearer. Unfortunately, thinking clearer meant that he could appreciate exactly how screwed he was and exactly how much he wanted to reach across the bed and pull Nate closer. Want settled in his throat, full and hollow at the same time. His muscles prickled with the desire to grab Nate, to run his fingers down his spine and across his shoulders, to kiss him and hold him close, and never let him go. These thoughts were not conducive to falling back asleep, but Brad couldn’t stop. He’d been fighting these impulses for too long, and he was too tired. 

He should have left when he first woke up, but Nate had told him not to. At the time the prospect of a full night’s sleep had been so tempting. If he felt this much better after just an hour, imagine how he’d feel if he actually managed to fall asleep for a few hours in a row. He might even be coherent enough to come up with some bullshit strong enough to get him out of this mess. Instead, he was lying in Nate’s hotel room, equal parts horny, exhausted and uncomfortable.

Brad wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there trying not to fidget, but he was just about to give up and leave when Nate muttered “Oh, fuck this” and tugged at Brad’s arm. “Come back here.”

Brad obligingly followed where he was being yanked, and ended up pressed against Nate like he had been when he woke up. He wrapped his arm across Nate’s chest.

“There. Christ.” Nate said, a little bitchily in Brad’s opinion, “Now relax.”

Brad felt like objecting, on principle, to being ordered to relax. He felt like telling Nate that pressing against someone you really wanted to get naked with was never going to be relaxing, but then Nate started absentmindedly tracing the lettering on the back of his t-shirt with his fingertips and all thoughts fell right out of Brad’s head. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t sure how he would have ever expressed that without incriminating himself anyway.

While Nate’s fingers traced soothing patterns across Brad’s shoulders, he felt himself relaxing almost against his will. Nate’s shoulder was firm beneath his cheek, and, although Nate’s heart was beating too fast, his breathing was slow and steady. Brad counted the breaths—in and out and in again—until he fell asleep.

When Brad next woke, it was morning. Or almost morning. The sun wasn’t risen yet, but it looked like it would any minute. Nate was sleeping beneath him, his chin tucked against the top of Brad’s head. Brad wondered if he could extricate himself without waking Nate, but even as he tried, Nate murmured “If you sneak out, I’m just going to show up at your door inconveniently early tomorrow morning.”

“I’m just getting out of these jeans,” Brad said defensively.

Nate snorted his disbelief, but he released his hold on Brad without further comment. Brad made his way to Nate’s bathroom, relieved himself, splashed some water on his face, and stole some of Nate’s toothpaste. As he was swiping his finger around his mouth, he regarded himself in the mirror. Coming here might have been a colossally bad decision, but even he had to admit that he looked less like he was going to collapse at any moment. He shimmied out of his jeans and, stepping out of the bathroom, dropped them on a kitchen stool. When he looked over, he saw that Nate had flopped over onto his stomach with one arm over his face, blocking out the light. Brad took a moment to admire the view before slipping under the covers on the side he had claimed as his. 

Not one to mess with something when it was working, he immediately flopped onto Nate, wrapping his arm around Nate’s waist and tucking his head behind Nate’s. Nate’s shoulder blade was digging into his chest slightly but rearranging himself felt like entirely too much effort. Brad’s exhaustion had settled into something that felt more normal, like something that could be dealt with if he just slept long enough, rather than the desperate feeling he’d come here with to escape.

Nate shifted underneath Brad’s weight, turning them so they were lying side by side. He reached back to pull Brad’s arm closer and then stopped.

“Brad?”

Nate rolled away, turning so he was facing Brad.

“You were expecting someone else?”

Nate blinked and frowned. “I thought I dreamed you.”

Adrenaline flooded Brad in a cold rush. That actually made a lot of sense. It certainly explained why Nate’s initial reaction hadn’t been the awkwardness Brad had expected, but instead had been almost flirtatious.

Brad shut down that train of thought as soon as it occurred to him. They could only afford to have one of them be a wreck at a time, and Nate clearly had dibs on that this morning. He was still frowning intently, as if he could force reality to make sense through sheer force of will. If anyone could, Brad thought, it would be Nate. 

“Should I go?”

“No!” 

Nate reached out a hand and grabbed Brad’s arm, the force of his reaction seemingly startling them both. And then Nate was kissing him, fast and frantic. This was a bad idea. This was at least six bad ideas. Nate had never given any indication that this was on the table; Brad had assumed that he didn’t want the hassle. But Nate slipped his hand off of Brad’s arm and up under the hem of his shirt and Brad decided to go with it. Nate seemed to know what he wanted now.

Brad leaned in, chasing Nate’s mouth and reveled in the catch in Nate’s breath. Nate’s fingers were stroking long, smooth sweeps up and down Brad’s back, holding him close, and when Brad bit down on Nate’s neck Nate’s fingers clutched Brad’s shoulders encouragingly. He returned his mouth to Nate’s, kissing him recklessly, with no technique or forethought, just the desperation of need.

Brad didn’t know when he’d slipped his leg in between Nate’s, but Nate was grinding against his thigh and Brad suddenly felt that it would be criminal to let this go any further while Nate was fully clothed. Brad was wrestling with Nate’s shirt when Nate’s hand slid down and cupped Brad’s dick through his shorts and suddenly Brad was close to losing it embarrassingly quickly. This isn’t how he’d wanted this to go, but his brain stopped driving this process a long time ago, and it has been so long, and this was Nate. Brad lost all dexterity and coordination, throwing his head back and letting his hands fall to his sides. He was bucking up against Nate’s hand, clenching his jaw so hard it felt like his teeth might break, and suddenly he was coming, and he doesn’t know what he said, but Nate muttered “Christ, Brad” and Brad thought Nate might be coming as well, because he was shaking and muttering swears into the side of Brad’s neck. For a moment, they stayed curled up like that, tangled together and breathing hard. Brad couldn’t stop running his hand along the back of Nate’s neck. 

Eventually, the moment had to end. Nate muttered something about the blankets and being cold. Brad flopped onto his back, content and ready to slip back into sleep while his brain was still fuzzy, no matter how uncomfortable he’d be later. He would have too, but Nate was not enjoying similar lassitude.

Nate had rolled so his back was to Brad, and he seemed to still be shaking. When Brad reached out, he moved so he was sitting up on the edge of the bed, his back still to Brad.

“Nate?”

“Yeah,” Nate said without turning around. “I’m good. Everything’s fine. I’m good.”

“The panic in your tone belies the calmness of your words.”

“No, yeah. Everything is on the up and up. I’m just going to...um...I’m going to shower really quickly. And yeah. I’m fine, but I’m just going to shower.”

“Nate,” Brad called, but Nate had already crossed the room and closed the bathroom door. Brad heard the water start to run.

Brad didn’t understand what had gone wrong. He rubbed a hand over his face. He was not in a place where he could deal with this reasonably. Fucking Nate. He was supposed to make things easier, not make everything infinitely harder. Brad’s skin was crawling, and the hairs on his arm were standing straight up. He needed to get out of there. This was fucked up, and he didn’t know why, but he did not have the resources to deal with this right now. Brad sat up, grabbed his shoes from the end of the bed, slid into his jeans, and left. 

***

Fueled by frustration and a few hours of sleep, Brad’s walk home seemed to be talking half of the time as the walk to the motel, despite the fact that his chest was so tight that it hurt to breathe. Fucking Nate. He shouldn’t have dumped this pile on uncertainty in Brad’s lap. He knew how Brad felt about him. He had to. He certainly seemed to understand all of Brad’s other unspoken thoughts. He was pretty certain Nate felt something for him too, but Brad would have been, if not content, then comfortable never bringing it up. There were a lot of reasons why Nate might decide that being together was more complicated than he wanted to take on. Brad respected that; he didn’t expect to get everything he wanted, not even things he wanted as badly as he wanted Nate. There wasn’t any reason that they shouldn’t have gone on as colleagues and almost friends. When command drove Nate away, as Brad was sure they inevitably would, they might even stay in touch. It wasn’t enough, but it was fine. Brad had never expected two kids and a picket fence anyway.

But then Nate had flipped the script. Nate had reached for him, and Brad had assumed, he felt stupid now for thinking it, but he’d thought, with surprise, “Oh. So we’re doing this.” He’d thought that Nate meant to keep him close for more than just a moment, wanted him for more than an orgasm.

Frustrated, Brad kicked at a stone in his path. That wasn’t fair. He knew it as soon as he thought it. Nate did want him for more than that. It was more a question if Nate wanted him enough to willingly take on the difficulty of being closeted, of maintaining a relationship that was bound on all sides by lies and secrecy. Brad ground his teeth together. If Nate didn’t want that, or if he didn’t know what he wanted, he shouldn’t have gotten Brad involved in the first place. He should have let Brad awkwardly creep out; then they never would have had to mention the night again. Brad had resigned himself to being Nate’s trusted work friend, he had gotten there, and now this. Admittedly, he shouldn’t have shown up on Nate’s doorstep to begin with, but he had the excuse of 72 hours with only a few minutes of sleep here and there. What was Nate’s excuse? 

He supposed that it was possible that he had unrealistic expectations of Nate. Nate might be just as exhausted as he was. He’d been acting on instinct, not executing a ten step plan for fucking with Brad’s life. Brad didn’t know how long he’d loved Nate. Probably from around the first time he’d seen Nate clench his jaw and quietly put someone in their place. Months of close proximity to someone who seemed too good to be true, and who seemed to understand him before he even know what he meant himself, could have built a slightly idealized picture in his head.

Brad stopped and stared at the florescent lights of a gas station. He was pretty sure this place sold booze, and he’d more than earned a good drunk. Stepping forward, he realized that his wallet wasn’t in his pockets. He didn’t have his keys either. Brad really hoped he’d left the door unlocked when he left. Having to break into his own damn apartment would just be the kicker on this already phenomenally shitty night.

As he let himself into his (thankfully unlocked) apartment, Brad decided that he was going to stick to his original plan of pretending that the night had never happened. If Nate got his shit squared away and decided he wanted Brad, he knew where to find him. In the meantime, Brad would go back to assuming that he would never get to be with Nate. He would be as professional and collegial as ever. If having experience with how things could have been made it that much harder, well, tough shit. That was how things went sometimes. For him, it seemed that was how things went most of the time. 

***

Nate stood underneath the shower, letting the water beat onto his chest and shoulders. He wished the showerhead were tall enough that it beat on his face too, but since cheap hotels didn’t run to those sorts of amenities, he clearly heard the sound of front door shutting, presumably as Brad left. Nate was dimly aware that he should feel bad about that, but he couldn’t quite muster the feeling. He felt numb, and faintly relieved. He didn’t want to see Brad just yet. Not after he’d fucked up so thoroughly and not when he didn’t have any answers for Brad as to why he’d kissed him or what it had meant. Mechanically, he ducked down and washed and rinsed his hair. 

Nate stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. He dried his face and hair, wrapped the towel around his waist, then sunk down onto the edge of the tub. He didn’t want to face the empty room outside the bathroom door. He groaned and slipped to the floor, the fiberglass cool against his back as he pressed his head to his knees. He should not have let this happen, not any of it.

He was just so tired. Tired of not speaking his mind, of guarding his reactions, of being the mouthpiece for plans in which he had no faith. He was tired of pretending that things made sense to him, and he was tired of pretending that Brad wasn’t the best part of every day; that Brad didn’t make more sense to him than everything else combined.

Nate knew what he wanted. He wanted to be good at his job. He wanted to be able to give his men the missions they deserved, and the tools they needed to execute them. He wanted to believe that his country would stand by its word and protect those who came seeking sanctuary. 

He also wanted Brad. There’d been no reason to miss Brad over the last few days, no maps that needed a second set of eyes, no decisions that he needed backed up, yet Brad’s absence had been conspicuous. He'd missed having someone by his side who he could count on to understand. He'd missed Brad's formal speeches, declaimed from the top of a Humvee with as much weight as if they were spoken from a throne. Nate knew what he wanted. He wanted Brad, wanted the comfort of him, the easy rhythm of their camaraderie more than he could ever remember wanting anyone.

The two things he wanted were diametrically opposed to each other.

Mentally scolding himself, Nate dragged himself up and into the room to get dressed. The conflicts of his desires were irrelevant at this point. If he hadn’t grabbed Brad, then he might have had the luxury of going on pretending that he didn’t wanted Brad so badly that the ache of it sat in his bones like an old injury, but that option was off the table. He’d kissed Brad, groped him, and then left Brad alone. Nate owed him, at the very least, an apology, and explanation, and a plan to move forward. So now he needed to figure out which he wanted more--to be good at his job or to be with Brad.

Nate’s stomach clenched thinking about it. He didn’t know how he could sit here and rationally think about defying laws and regs and the basics of professional conduct, when he’d held himself so tightly bound by them just a few days and weeks earlier. He thought of the Iraqis he’d “unsurrendered;” he felt the heaviness in his gut when he’d sent his men into an ambush with no chance to recon the AO ; he saw Mike’s concerned glances every time he’d backed Schwetje’s decisions. Nate put the sliced ham in his hand back in the fridge. He’d never swallow the sandwich he had been thinking of making around the tightness in his throat. 

He couldn’t justify this. It didn’t make sense that he was considering throwing away everything to be with Brad, forsaking his duties, his responsibilities, his oaths and his promised. But how could he not? Brad had kept him feeling like a human being on days when he’d felt like nothing more than a hollow shell. At the time, he’d figured that if someone like Brad were still speaking to him, he couldn’t have fucked up too badly. Brad was his guideline, his lifeline. And now he’d left Brad in the lurch, with no explanation.

Flopping onto the bed, Nate stared at the familiar ceiling cracks. He didn’t know how he was supposed to make this decision. How did you choose between the things you wanted most in the world?

Although. There was something to that. If he really wanted Brad as much as he wanted to do right by his men, as much as he wanted to uphold the oath he’d taken, that was significant. He sat up. And there were ways around the logistics. They’d likely transfer him anyway, given how things had gone. He’d never backed down from something because it was too hard before; there was no reason to start now.

Galvanized by the possibilities, Nate got back up to make that sandwich he’d abandoned. Why shouldn’t he and Brad have this if this was what they wanted? He began to spread mustard over bread, thinking through his next steps. First on the list was to come up with a way to apologize to Brad that conveyed that he knew how seriously he’d misstepped while suggesting that Brad trust him enough to try again.

***

Sitting in his car in the parking lot of Brad’s apartment complex, Nate tried again to come up with a reasonable excuse for his actions, but much like his first hundred tries, he found it almost impossible to come up with a coherent way to say “I'm sorry I groped you and then fled. That was undignified and unbecoming and you deserved better. What we were doing was unprofessional and unethical, which I found overwhelming. That being said, I'd like to do it again. Properly this time.”

Nate was so engrossed with trying to come up with a more eloquent way to apologize that he was halfway up the stairs to Brad’s third floor apartment before he realized that he had no way to know if Brad was even home. He’d have to wait. There was no way around it; this had gone on long enough. He raised his fist and knocked with more confidence than he felt. 

Within a minute or two, Brad opened the door, seemingly entirely unsurprised to see Nate on his doorstep. He let Nate in and asked “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“I. Um. Water?”

Brad nodded and headed into his kitchen, returning shortly with a glass. He handed it to Nate, who immediately felt ridiculous holding it and set it aside on an end table.

“I’m surprised you let me in that easily.”

Brad’s mouth twisted in self-mockery, “I owed you one. You let _me_ in.”

“I would have called, but I don’t actually have your number.”

“But you know where I live?” 

Nate shrugged “ Last year. When you gave Poke that old couch for his rec room. He borrowed my truck. I left it out front, and took his mini-van.”

Brad looked askance, “That truck was yours? Sir, that vehicle was an offense to well-maintained vehicles the world over. And it was Japanese. I’d expect a patriot such as yourself to at least have the dignity to support the country you purport to love”

“I was young. And it was cheap.”

“It was cheap because it’s going to crap out on you on I-5, and you’re going to die in a fiery wreck.” The truck had indeed broken down rather spectacularly a few months later, but Nate saw no reason to enlighten Brad about that. “Anyway, “ Brad continued as if they’d never switched subjects, “I had to let you in. I have observed how stubborn you can be when you think you’re right. My neighbors would not appreciate that scene. Easier to let you in, let you say your piece, and send you on your merry way. Besides, I’m the one who left.”

“It’s probably best that you did. I had a lot of stupidity to work through, and I’m glad you didn’t have to see it.”

“Officer-enlisted divide keeping you up at night, Nate?”

“I have some worries about that, but mostly there was a lot of self-recrimination...that I was willing to break these regs, but not do more when it actually mattered. When we were actually...” He swallowed roughly.

Brad snorted, unimpressed. “Taking yourself a little seriously, aren’t you? Did you then remind yourself that the rules for combat and everyday life are slightly different? And that nobody lives or dies based on this fucking decision?”

“Something like that.”

“And you’re here because you’re done being stupid?” There was something in Brad’s tone that flipped Nate’s stomach, a seriousness that he hadn’t expected, or, rather, had, but still didn’t quite know how to handle.

Nate fiddled with the pen in his pocket. He had a lot of practice in reading Brad’s polite neutrality for the varying degrees of insult intended; he’d been fairly certain since he had walked in that he was in the clear, and Brad was just giving him a hard time, but this moment was the turning point. Whatever he said next had to be right, or Brad would shut down immediately. He was sure in this decision, but that didn’t make it easier to put his feelings into words.

“I doubt I’ll ever entirely be done being stupid, but I did come to a decision.”

Brad waited.

Nate took a deep breath. “This could be wrong, but I think it’s more important than all of the reasons it might be wrong.”

It took a second for Brad to parse what Nate meant, and when he did, he asked “Why?”

When Nate looked up at Brad, Brad was staring at him intently, as if every answer to every question Brad held were written in Nate’s face. Nate had a vivid memory of Brad asking him “Did they understand the warning shots?”

Nate shook his head slightly, “I don’t know. I just know that you are.”

Nate hoped Brad understood. He didn’t have an explanation. Words had always been his friends, but all the words he knew for situations like this felt wrong. They all seemed fragile; they implied something that could be broken. What he felt for Brad was different than that. He didn’t understand it, but he’d sooner question the laws of gravity than he’d waver in his faith in Brad. 

Nate could tell that Brad got it, because he took a deep breath similar to Nate’s and stepped forward. He let loose one of those smiles that stopped Nate’s heart—the one that started as a smirk and built gradually until Brad was beaming.

Brad tugged Nate closer and kissed him, slow and thorough, like he was staking a claim. Nate knew he shouldn’t be shaken. Brad was expressing the same decision that he himself had come to express. That this wasn’t something he took lightly. That if they were going to do this, they were going to do it right. But this kiss felt like a promise. It felt like a vow.

Nate brought his hands up to Brad’s face, running his fingers along Brad’s temple, tracing the line of his jaw. Brad pulled back slightly. 

“You’re fucking sure this time, right?”

Nate grinned. “I’m sure.”

“Good. If you pull that shit again, I’m not going to be held responsible for my reactions. I have no patience for your chickenshit pussyfooting around.”

***

_Epilogue_

“What’s all this?” Nate asked, dropping his bag by the garage door and stepping into the kitchen.

“It’s just dinner,” Brad said crankily, continuing to take plates out of the dishwasher. “I know you like to think that you’ve ascended to another plane of existence and can do without things like sustenance and sleep, but I have it on good authority that you require nutrition just like the rest of us.”

“My mother is not a good authority.” Nate said lightly, bringing his arms around Brad’s waist and resting his chin on Brad’s shoulder. “And this isn’t ‘just’ anything. Unless being on a higher plane of existence made me to forget how to read, those bags tell me that you drove two hours to get me takeout from the only decent Polish restaurant on this entire coast. What’s the occasion?”

“It’s an anniversary,” Brad replied begrudgingly.

“Is it?” Nate tightened his arms around Brad. He’d never met anyone who loved grand romantic gestures as much as Brad did, yet he hated having them in anyway mentioned or acknowledged. “It isn’t ours, unless we’ve traveled forward in time by several months.”

“I hate you.” 

“Mmm, I know. And yet, you’re stuck with me.”

“The wedding was for other people.” Brad said, dropping his hands to Nate’s and squeezing. “I knew we were solid the day you showed up at my door.”

Nate felt such a rush of love for the absurd human being he had married. Brad was always surprising him, even after all this time. Most people wouldn’t think of duck blood soup and pierogi as anniversary foods, but then most people weren’t married to homesick Baltimore transplants.

Nate pressed his forehead to Brad’s temple and hugged Brad tight. “You’re an asshole, you know that? You say shit like that, and then get mad at me for replying.”

He let Brad off the hook and turned toward the food on the table. “What did you get me to eat? I’m starving.”


End file.
